04/03/2026
🌍 W zeszłą sobotę mieliśmy zaszczyt uczestniczyć w depozycie danych The Fryderyk Chopin Institute w Arctic World Archive na Svalbardzie. 🌍
❄️ Rolki piqlFilm z cyfrowymi kopiami rękopisów Chopina oraz innymi cennymi zbiorami polskiej muzyki zostały zabezpieczone na pokolenia – odporne na zmiany technologiczne, zagrożenia i upływ czasu.
Dziękujemy Instytutowi Chopina za zaufanie i wspólną wizję ochrony dziedzictwa kulturowego!
🎶🎞️ The Fryderyk Chopin Institute is once again depositing its collections at the Arctic World Archive
🔵 The Arctic World Archive (AWA) in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, is a growing digital archive of the world's memory. Located in a closed coal mine, hidden deep underground, where naturally stable climatic conditions (in terms of temperature and relative humidity) prevail and inaccessible to outsiders, it is an almost ideal place to safeguard cultural assets. 🌍 The Arctic World Archive (AWA) in Longyearbyen, on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, is a growing digital archive of the world’s memory. Located in a closed coal mine, hidden deep underground where naturally stable climatic conditions prevail (in terms of temperature and relative humidity) and inaccessible to outsiders, it constitutes an almost ideal place for safeguarding cultural heritage. Moreover, the Spitsbergen Treaty (also known as the Paris Treaty), signed on 9 February 1920, grants its signatories (currently more than 40 countries, including Poland) the right to exploit the archipelago’s natural resources and conduct scientific research there. In the early 1950s, the Norwegian government declared the archipelago a neutral territory. It is also worth mentioning that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault—the world seed bank—is located in the vicinity of the AWA.
🔵 On 26 February 2026, a ceremony for the deposit of new materials in the AWA took place. It was a unique moment when organizations from around the world secured their heritage for the benefit of future generations.
🔵 This is the second deposit made by The Fryderyk Chopin Institute. In 2024, the Institute placed in the Norwegian archive a single piqlFilm data carrier containing digital copies of selected musical manuscripts by Fryderyk Chopin (including autograph manuscripts) from the collections of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw. They were stored in the AWA on the 'Polish shelf', alongside works by our Nobel Prize laureates Wisława Szymborska and Olga Tokarczuk. The initiative was carried out as part of the EEA project 'Around the Source: Polish and Norwegian Musical Theory and Practice in the 19th and 20th Centuries'.
🔵 PiqlFilm is an optical analogue data carrier designed for long-term archiving, on which data are recorded both in digital and visual form, enabling them to be read in a way that is understandable to humans. Additionally, the medium makes it possible to encode instructions on how to recover the data in the event that certain technologies disappear in the future—for example, instructions on how to construct a device capable of restoring and reading the data. The carrier is made of polyester film coated with a layer of gelatin containing light-sensitive silver halides. In other words, it is an enhanced microfilm, still regarded today as one of the most durable information carriers (with a lifespan of over 1,000 years). It also demonstrates significant resistance not only to temperature fluctuations but also to magnetic and electromagnetic interference. Thanks to its analogue form, it is not susceptible to cyber attacks, which is an extremely important advantage given the rapid development of digital solutions and the associated risks.
🔵 During the deposit, the Institute deposited nine carriers containing further digital copies of Chopin’s manuscripts—musical autographs and letters—the originals of which are held at the Fryderyk Chopin Museum. In addition to the Chopin-related artefacts, the deposit also include the results of a long-term EU project carried out by the Institute entitled 'The Heritage of Polish Music in Open Access', namely digital copies of manuscripts and printed music from selected Polish libraries, archives, and museums, including, among others, the Warsaw Music Society, the Archive of the Cathedral Chapter at Wawel, and the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków.
🔵 This year’s deposit of carriers is being carried out thanks to a grant obtained by the Institute from the European Funds for Digital Development programme, as part of the project 'Polish Musical Culture in the European Perspective – Sources and Contexts' (with funding exceeding PLN 46 million).
